Quoting Pope John Paul II on the centennary of Maria Goretti’s death, Ruse says the pope

underscored the importance of her virginity to her final struggle, “She did not flee from the voice of the Holy Spirit, from the voice of her conscience. She rather chose death. Through the gift of fortitude, the Holy Spirit helped her to ‘judge’—and to choose with her young spirit. She chose death when there was no other way to defend her virginal purity.”

Seems simple, right? Not so fast. Ruse repeats the quote from JPII:

She chose death when there was no other way to defend her virginal purity. And there is the controversy. There are certain voices in the blogosphere who are offended at this notion that Maria Goretti died defending her virginal purity.

Simcha Fisher is so incensed at the notion she wrote a whole column entitled “Maria Goretti Didn’t Die for Her Virginity.” Fisher is smart enough to know she couldn’t get away with that headline so she tries to cover herself with her first sentence, “Or she wasn’t canonized just because she managed to remain a virgin, anyway.”

However, Fisher argues that Goretti was canonized because she focused on her attacker’s soul rather than on her own virginity. Goretti tried to convince him that he was committing a mortal sin and would go to Hell for what he was threatening to do. Fisher says Goretti was not in love with a particular virtue but rather in love with the humanity of a particular person, her attacker.

Fisher says such notions as “holiness, chastity, humility, charity, diligence” are “bathwater” surrounding the “baby” which is “love in action.”

On Facebook, Fisher actually dismisses those who maintain the view held by both Pope Pius XII and St. John Paul the Great as the “Maria Goretti died out of love for her hymen” crowd.

Fisher was not the only one.

Where Pius XII and John Paul the Great called young people to emulate Maria Goretti, a blogger at the ever-diminishing Patheos says, not so fast! Blogger Kari Persson is concerned that Goretti’s response unto death may be considered “normative.” She says such a response to Goretti is “possibly deeply damaging” and could result in “frustration, hatred, and anger, mixed with envy and self-reproach” among those “affected by rape, whether victims or those close to victims.” She also says, “Not everyone can express forgiveness for their attackers as readily as St. Maria…” We should view all of this as miraculous and certainly not normative.

Persson seems fully subscribed to the commonality of our age where trophies are given just for showing up, where winning first prize somehow diminishes those who are second, or third, or last.

Of course, the Church has never taught that all are called to martyrdom. However, we are called to emulate or to draw inspiration from them.

Here is John Paul II on the centenary of her death, “I am especially holding up this saint as an example to young people who are the hope of the Church and of humanity.” He also said her “martyrdom” heralded the beginning of the great century of martyrs, a century where Catholics died for their faith, as she did.

Yet another blogger at Patheos joined the Goretti fray. Mary Pezzulo begins her blog-post with a big sigh: “It’s that time of year again. Today is Maria Goretti’s feast day.” Maria Goretti’s feast day is annual trail for Pezzulo.

Pezzulo recalls a moment a few years ago when a Franciscan nun exhorted her that Maria Goretti “died rather than give up her purity.” Pezzulo left the bookshop where this horror happened “as quickly as possible” and then regretted not telling the Nun “how many people the sister might hurt by repeating the story in that way.”

Pezzulo writes, “Becoming the victim of someone else’s sin is never a sin. It wouldn’t have been for Maria Goretti, either.” Had she fought her attacker and been raped nonetheless, “she would have incurred no guilt. God would have still known her to be pure.” Pezzulo seems to accuse the nun, and others like her, of canonizing Goretti because Goretti refused to be a victim of rape.

One Patheos blogger named Max Lindeman suggested that Maria could not be considered a martyr since she did not die for hatred of the faith and that “martyr of charity” was not “coined until the beatification of Maximillian Kolbe.” For that, though, we can turn to the Angelic Doctor who wrote, “Not only is he a martyr one who refuses to deny a truth of the faith, but he who dies for the sake of some virtue, or to avoid sin against any commandment.” We also note the words of Pius XII and John Paul the Great.

To see how all this has become so unhinged, when Deacon Jim Russell went to the comment boxes to quote John Paul II on Maria Goretti and her virginity, another Patheos blogger named Cynthia Schrage asked him, “What is your f***ing problem?” and accused him of being a “spiritual stalker.”

It is hard to understand this odd fight over Maria Goretti and her canonization. The Church —as expressed in the words of the Pope who canonized her and his successors—regards Goretti as a martyr to her virginity. That is a fact not even Patheos and Aleteia bloggers can get around, try as they might.

I used to get along fairly well with Simcha Fisher. Until I wrote this:

I was accused of being a rigorist last night. I didn’t know this about myself. Simcha Fisher accused me, and a group of other concerned Catholics on Facebook discussing Pope Francis’s ardent defenders, of having this disposition. Apparently that’s what you call Catholics who think that Pope Francis’s words of late have been utterly reckless, theologically misleading, and borderline heretical.

Now, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m no rigorist. If anything, I’m a laxist. By nature I am a lazy hedonist. I find the motto, “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you may die” far, far more appealing than “Turn the other cheek” or anything you find in the Beatitudes. I have no interest in the trite niceties of religion. I struggle to care sufficiently about the poor. I hate praying the Rosary. I’d far rather have an acid tongue than a charitable one. When I read the lives of the Saints, I often think that they sound like impossible caricatures which only mean I am more damned than I ever could have thought, because how could I be that good? I am much more inclined to pursue wine, women, and song than I am the Cardinal virtues. I am a sinner first and foremost, and my selfishness is almost limitless. I have yet to reach a point in my life where my sanctity might inspire the heathen, though I count myself fortunate to know that my words have helped to bring about conversion. Anything that I can count in my favor on Judgment Day, I’ll cling to.

No, I am no rigorist. I am simply a man who needs boundaries, who knows that the (apocryphal) Dostoyevskian adage, “If God is not, then everything is permissible” would apply only too strongly in my own life if I were to try to live without Him.

The Catholic Church was, for the better part of 2,000 years, the one place on Earth where such boundaries were set in stone. So despite my empiricist inclinations and occasional flirtations with atheism, despite my immense struggles with believing in or perceiving a personal God who loves me, I had the law and intellectual tradition of the Church to fall back on. I had Pascal’s wager, much as it always irked me. I have spent many years of my life studying theology, and I have always found comfort in knowing that if I want to know what the Church teaches, I can look it up. Because it’s written down somewhere. Somewhere like this:

But beyond the words and the laws of theology written in the books were the rubrics of liturgy, sacred art and music, church architecture, adoration, Eucharistic processions – in short, a tapestry of creative genius, pietistic impulse, ritual actions, the collective obeisance to the transcendent through work and worship that is and has been, in point of fact, enough to inspire the heathen. As a little card in my uncle’s bathroom reading rack used to say, “The Catholic Church: Never Popular, Always Attractive.” These things appealed to my aesthetic impulse, to the part of me that seems unable to disbelieve that truth and beauty are two facets of the same gem.

Catholicism was, historically, a magnificent thing. It was grandiose, majestic, and inspiring. It was always greater than the sum of its parts. There is no more profound feeling than entering the Vatican grounds or walking through St. Peter’s Basilica, but for an understanding of the absolutely astonishing peasant faith that built the great European Cathedrals, one needs to look at, for example, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux in Normandy:

This amazing structure, dedicated in 11th century (in the presence of William the Conqueror!) absolutely TOWERS over the surrounding homes and buildings, even to this day. An edifice such as this can be seen for miles, and it tells the visitor that God, not man, is the most important thing to the inhabitants therein. Think of the work, the toil, the craftsmanship of the common that went in to building such a structure year after year until its completion is truly humbling. It speaks of something far greater than one can find in the mere treasures and pleasures of this world.

Catholicism in its greatness was always a religion that inspired and demanded the best from its adherents. It was a “stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles.” It made protestants uncomfortable by its very nature, its liturgy was steeped in tradition and mysticism, and its armies fought off the Muslim hordes. It brought kings low and made emperors do penance. The traditional burial ceremony of the Hapsburgs gives me chills, when the only entrance to the church that is permitted to those of royal blood is not their impressive list of earthly titles but the statement, “I am a poor mortal and a sinner.”

Belloc said that “the Faith is Europe and Europe is the Faith” because the history of the two — and really, of Western Civilization — were inextricable.

And the Church’s claims on exclusivity left no doubt as to the seriousness of standing outside her gates if one wished to attain salvation. Pope Eugene IV laid this claim on the line in the Council of Florence in 1441, when he proclaimed:

The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, and heretics, and schismatics, can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire “which was prepared for the devil, and his angels,” (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this Ecclesiastical Body, that only those remaining within this unity can profit from the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of Christian piety and duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.

The Church is attractive because she is beautiful. The Church is appealing, despite her many rules and requirements, because she alone claims fullness of truth. The Church is inspiring because she is noble, and her traditions and customs give witness to her profound sacramental beliefs.

Much of this, perhaps even most of this, has been lost since Vatican II. The Church has become an instrument of compromise, of syncretism, and of mediocrity. A bourgeois, bubble gum-chewing religion of suburban good cheer. Her architecture has become banal, her music profane, her liturgies humanistic. She no longer challenges the world with witness to Christ Crucified, but instead tells the world that there are many paths to heaven for people of good conscience.

For the life of me, I can’t fathom why anyone faced with the Church of 2013 would choose to convert to Catholicism. For fellowship? I can get fellowship from the local MegaChurch, with far fewer impositions on my personal liberty. For the sacraments? But most Catholics don’t even believe in the Real Presence, most parishes have no adoration or Eucharistic devotions, most priests offer an hour or less per week of confession time on the parish schedule.

I was drawn to Catholic tradition and the Old Latin Mass not because of some nostalgia, or even a predilection for dead languages. I’ve never taken a day of Latin class in my life and I still don’t understand it. I love traditional liturgy and theology because they mean something. Because they show me my place in the cosmos. Because one can’t help but notice the absolute seriousness and importance of what is going on up at the altar when one isn’t dodging giant puppets and felt banners and Eucharistic ministers and guitar-strumming minstrels and the tinkling of glad tambourines. Because traditional Catholic piety and worship give rise to a feeling that this religion I have been a part of all my life ACTUALLY ACTS AS THOUGH THE COMPLETELY FANTASTIC THINGS IT CLAIMS TO BELIEVE ARE TRUE rather than perpetually undermining its own teachings with watered-down “worship spaces” and infinitely regressing theological nuance.

Catholicism is a “Go big or go home” religion. Catholicism is radical. It is radical in its claims, in its demands, in its beliefs, in its scope, and in its trappings. When it ceases to be radical, the whole enterprise becomes significantly less credible. It becomes merely one choice among many in a spectrum of religions all more or less following the natural law. It ceases to be the fulfillment of a covenant with a chosen people, and instead becomes a lifestyle choice.

So back to Pope Francis. What is my problem with him? Well, let me start by saying that I had hope for the papacy that followed Benedict XVI. I had an inclination that maybe he really knew what he was doing with his abdication and that something was coming that the Church needed. And yet, when I saw Francis that first moment as he stepped out to face the massive crowds in St. Peter’s square, I found myself filled with inexplicable dread. I had no idea who the man was or what he was about – I had never even heard his name before that moment. But there was something in his face, in the deadness of his eyes, that inspired in me a feeling of revulsion. I have always had a strong ability to judge character, but I tried to suppress it. I attempted to find ways to give the benefit of the doubt. I could not discount a successor of St. Peter because of nothing more than a feeling. But that feeling was strong, and I have never been ill-served by listening to my feelings about people.

Then he started speaking. And the statements he has been making are intensely problematic. Are they explicitly heretical? No. Are they dangerously close? Absolutely. What kind of a Christian tells an atheist he has no intention to convert him? That alone should disturb Catholics everywhere. Many of his other statements, by and large, are less egregious, though they are still quite problematic. They are open to wildly varying interpretation because they are made without context, thus leaving it open to the will of the interpreter to apply it. And look at the sort of context one can apply:

The-Greatest-Evil

Or how about:

good-and-evil

Or perhaps:

Martyrdom

It only takes the barest scraps of creativity and one can apply his words — which on the surface seem simply gentle and eminently reasonable — to whatever situation one wants. Which is why I’m not the only one applying his words to unintended situations. It is the reason why this happened:

In a world where the pope speaks like Eugene IV, or even Benedict XVI, this kind of thing doesn’t happen. A pope who knows Catholic doctrine and hews close to it in his public statements does not provide opportunities to be co-opted by some of the most evil people on the face of the planet. You want to blame NARAL? Go right ahead. But he’s the one who said we talk too much about abortion. And when you combine that with statements about the greatest evils in the world being unemployment or the loneliness of the old, I can’t see why they wouldn’t thank him. It’s a dream come true for them. They were on their heels, and the greatest single point of opposition to abortion in the world — the papacy — just decided to let up when momentum was finally building.

There are a lot of Catholics out there – good ones, probably far better ones than I am – trying to put a positive spin on every foolish thing the pope says. They don’t like it, not one bit, when other Catholics say things like, “Hey, what this guy is saying doesn’t sound at all like the Catholicism I’ve lived and studied MY ENTIRE LIFE. It sounds like something far different. It sounds like something intended to change the way Catholics believe.”

I can’t say I blame them. It’s tough when you find out that the pope isn’t doing things in the best interest of the Church. I remember how I felt when I first discovered that during my study of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent liturgical revolution. I was a JPII-We-Love-You Catholic with my BA in Theology from Steubenville, of all places, and a life spent in the Novus Ordo Missae. I wanted to find the flaws in the traditionalists’ arguments, because I couldn’t wrap my mind around what they would mean for the Church. Instead, I found myself agreeing and then ultimately joining their cause. C’est la vie.

I don’t think Pope Francis’ defenders are insincere. I don’t think they’re saying these things just because they want to continue their working relationships with the mainstream Catholic publications they write for. Working for the Church, in whatever capacity, is one of the quickest paths to financial insolvency, and it’s hard to lose that income. I’m glad I don’t depend on my Catholic writing gigs, because I’m finding it very hard to publish anything positive about the Church right now. But that doesn’t make them opportunists.

I like Simcha Fisher. I think she’s a good person and a faithful daughter of the Church. She has a lot of kids and she’s trying to raise them right and she is, often as not, more sensible than many others when it comes to her take on issues in the Church. Hell, I’ve sided with her on more than one occasion. Even on the issue of (gasp!) women wearing pants!

I don’t have any ill-will for Catholics defending the pope, but I do wish they would stop already. He is doing a lot of damage. He is muddying the already unclear theological waters and making it very, very easy for a world hell bent on seeing Catholics as the bad guys to misinterpret things until we have no chance of having an honest conversation about anything anymore. They’re already using “but the pope said” arguments against people out there defending the unborn and arguing against gay marriage. It isn’t going to stop. So while there may not be malice at work, I think these papal apologists need to step back and ask themselves if they’re maybe, just maybe, being a bit willfully obtuse.

Not all popes are chosen by the Holy Spirit, folks. Not everything a pope says is infallible, either. Heck, most of it isn’t. It’s OK to distance yourself from a dangerous pope. You don’t need to keep saying that things he said or did are being taken out of context, or that he didn’t contradict doctrine. The pope is not the faith. Eastern Catholics have been getting along fine without much input from him for millennia.

History shows us the truth of this. Pope Stephen VI wasn’t taken out of context when he held the cadaver synod. Pope John XII wasn’t misunderstood when he was committing adultery and murder. Pope Urban VI wasn’t being taken advantage of by the media when he tortured members of his curia who opposed him.

And none of these popes contradicted doctrine. They were all real popes. Valid popes. They were all protected by the Holy Spirit from promulgating doctrinal error in an official capacity, and that guarantee worked out just fine. But they were all asshole popes. Terrible, lecherous, murderous people. May God have mercy on their souls.

The thing they couldn’t do that Pope Francis can do? Give interviews that can be read by a global audience. Talk about doctrine in a non-doctrinal capacity in a way that gets everyone all confused. You can argue that they were worse while they were bedding women and killing enemies and digging up the corpses of their predecessors, but I honestly find that a lot easier to deal with. Nothing like, as Nancy Pelosi likes to say, a “Wolf in wolf’s clothing.” I like an enemy I can see.

No, what’s worse is when the enemy speaks in half-truths. When they veil themselves in cryptic language that can be taken to mean one thing by the orthodox and another by the progressive. When they speak in code that tells their brothers in the revolution that the fight is still on, that the 1960s aren’t dead yet and getting better. When they say nothing at all that can be definitively denounced as heterodox but everything that can be embraced by the heterodox if they so choose.

Stalin had a word for the people who sympathized with the Soviets in the West: useful idiots. This papacy is looking to be a continuation of the revolution that began before Bl. John XXIII invoked the council. This is a battle for the soul of the Church that is happening within the boundaries of papal infallibility, but make no mistake – a lot can go wrong without changing a single doctrine.

If you love Catholicism, take some time to read up on what it teaches. Or, I should say, what it taught before the second half of the 20th century. Understand the continuity that existed between popes in the past, and compare that to what you’re seeing now. You might be surprised.

If you want, in charity, to give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt, you have every right to do so. But I urge you to ask for discernment. To question with boldness whether your benevolent papism — an entirely noble but ultimately unnecessary aspect of the life of faith — is enabling something that will damage the Church’s ability to evangelize for years to come.

You can see that even though I disagreed with her assessment, I did so respectfully, even offering praise. Nevertheless, this opened a rift, the details of which involved some vicious exchanges that will edify no one. In Christian charity, I made an attempt to patch things up, which were returned in kind. Suffice to say, however, that any appearance of friendliness died that day, and occasional jabs are still thrown in my direction.

The fact is, the more openly I became concerned with the actions of the Francis pontificate, the more vilified I (and by extension, this publication) became by the likes of those mentioned – particularly the “luminaries” of the Patheos crowd, which later became the Aleteia crowd when Elizabeth Scalia brought her particular brand of smug, virtue signalling, quasi-heterodox Catholicism to their pages as Editor-in-Chief after leaving Patheos. (I previously revealed what happened to the already waning Catholic channel there after Scalia ended her tenure. It seems the best they can find are angsty, self-loathing Z-list “Catholic” bloggers to fill their roster these days.) Picking fights with and/or mocking websites like ours — rather than addressing the real problems we all face as Catholics — has become quite the club sport with this particular genre of Catholic writer.

But despite their speciousness, they merit discussion in the wake of Ruse’s piece because they signify something deeply toxic in that side of the Catholic media world, and by extension, the larger body of the faithful. Ruse himself attempts to pinpoint what is going on here:

This debate is less about Maria Goretti—after all, it is through the Church and not through Patheos and Aleteia bloggers that we know about her—than it is about something odd happening in Catholic journalism in general. There seems to be an abhorrence of orthodoxy, that is to say, tradition. Anything traditional smacks of politics, which means political conservatism. Simcha Fisher actually said there is a correlation between those who hold the Church’s view on Maria Goretti and those who believe in marital rape. If “conservatives” believe Maria Goretti died to save her virginity then it must be wrong. There must also be something about being accepted by the larger secular world where virginity is routinely mocked. In a truly odd and angry cri de l’ego published at Patheos this week, Mark Shea said his audience is no longer faithful Catholics but atheist lesbians.

That sounds about right.

Shea has arguably been the most ardent opponent to the work we do here, though the flame has been carried on by some of his less capable neophytes, which leads to this sort of childishness.

Some are more strident in their opposition; a recent virulently anti-traditional article that appeared at the National Catholic Register was taken down with the explanation that it was an unauthorized post that circumvented editorial review. (You can see the full post that was taken down here.) How that happened is a mystery to me, since I keep a tight rein on publishing permissions, and I assume the Register, out of self-preservation, would do the same. But the author — John Paul Shimek — is someone I’ve run into with some frequency on social media. An apologist for homosexual relationships that are “good and godly” (according to criterion he won’t really define), Shimek presents himself as a faithful son of the Church, quoting the Catechism with frequency to bolster his alleged bona fides. But he has no problem making his agenda clear, when asked:

When pressed about homosexuality, he’s almost equally open:

And yet Shimek has written for the Register, CatholicVote, Catholic World Report, and even Crisis Magazine. All Catholic publications that have a reputation for at least the post-conciliar standards of orthodoxy. At Crisis, Shimek’s bio portrays him as “a Roman Catholic theologian and a specialist on Vatican affairs. Prof. Shimek earned his graduate degrees in theology and philosophy from Catholic University of America…”

I’ve made it a point since establishing 1P5 to focus on ideas, and those in positions of influence who are putting them into action, rather than having personal battles with other Catholic writers. Nevertheless, we all co-exist in the same Internet space. Often times, we share a subset of the same readers. Internecine squabbles are an inevitability. Personality conflicts are going to happen. I expect to be attacked because I deal in controversial topics, and to be honest, it doesn’t really bother me, since it’s only an indicator of my effectiveness. But I think there is something deeper at work, and it provokes consideration.

For those Catholics who take the most pleasure in scorn and derision aimed at anyone who loves the Church’s traditions and is concerned with the current crisis in the Church — a crisis which has deepened exponentially under Pope Francis — one wonders why they bother identifying as Catholic at all? If orthodoxy and tradition are irritants; if their unorthodox viewpoints are in “ascendancy in the age of the Francis revolution,” how can we even claim to profess the same faith?

These are people who can be ignored by us, but nevertheless have influence — in the aggregate, if not individually — over the average faithful pewsitter. Joe Catholic doesn’t have time to vet every writer at publications he’s supposed to be able to trust. If he’s got nothing more to go on than modern catechesis, even if he wants to be faithful, he’s going to be influenced by the ideas presented herein.

There is a toxicity in play here that is spiritually dangerous. That St. Maria Goretti’s martyrdom for purity can be called into account (and gotten away with) is only the tip of a much larger iceberg. These are the thought leaders that do the most work to keep our fellow Catholics blind to what is really happening in the Church, and how it is damaging her mission to save souls. They give cover to those who do not wish to see, and that’s not good for anyone.

No doubt many of these writers have seen diminished influence as more and more people wake up, but they still collectively control far more of the Catholic media space than we do. Pray for them, for their conversion, for them to see what we see. It’d be great to have them on our side. And while I won’t hold my breath, with God, all things are possible.

5 comments on “Austin Ruse on the neo-Catholic Toxosphere: “St. Maria Goretti and the Demise of the neo-Catholic Blogosphere””

Quote: “Much of this, perhaps even most of this, has been lost since Vatican II. The Church has become an instrument of compromise, of syncretism, and of mediocrity. A bourgeois, bubble gum-chewing religion of suburban good cheer. Her architecture has become banal, her music profane, her liturgies humanistic. She no longer challenges the world with witness to Christ Crucified, but instead tells the world that there are many paths to heaven for people of good conscience.”

Which leads to the “you might be a rigorist if” song. Be Not Afraid. “My name is Bob and I’m a neo-Pelagian triumphalist. Like with binge drinking and cigarette smoking, I didn’t always suffer from excessive ultra-conservative rigidity. In fact, some of my best friends used to be neo-Jansenists, but I never tried it because my parents had warned me about how addictive it can be and the number of years a hardened heart takes away from your life span. Then one day Father FeelGood brought some burlap banners and Yamaha folk guitars to school for Show-n-Tell. This is one of the entry points. Father FeelGood is crafty. He may know some exotic bars and nightclubs in strange parts of town, but he also knows how to keep his parents and Aunt Emma fooled. So, kids, don’t hang out on street corners and watch out when a grinning progressive modernist closet case tries to introduce you to Haugen and Haas and St. Louis Jesuits albums…you’ll soon end up in the church basement watching slides on Latin American Marxist revolutionary movements and learning about your Enneagram number….While there is no cure, you can control your excessive rigidity. I will show you how in my special 12-step plan in these amazing DVD’s that everyone in the New Evangelization of Culture is talking about….You’ll learn how to avoid a Novus Ordo folk guitar Mass…Exiting quickly from a Marxist slide show in the church basement…Performing the Vulcan nerve pinch on a neo-Catholic charismatic…and many others…. ”

Enough! Damn these neoCats. Damn the bishops who will not defend purity against the queers, the transies, especially my cardinal and bishop who applaud the Massachusetts gov’t for passing the tranny “bathroom bill.” St. Maria Goretti stands in Heaven as a witness against all of you.

Hear Pope Piux XII:

At her beatification, Pius said, “Maria Goretti resembled St. Agnes in her characteristic virtue of fortitude. This virtue of fortitude is at the same time the safeguard as well as the fruit of virginity. Our new beata was strong and wise and fully aware of her dignity. That is why she professed death before sin. She was not twelve years of age when she shed her blood as a martyr, nevertheless what foresight, what energy she showed when aware of danger! She was on the watch day and night to defend her chastity, making use of all the means at her disposal, persevering in prayer and entrusting the lily of her purity to the special protection of Mary, the Virgin of virgins. Let us admire the fortitude of the pure of heart. It is a mysterious strength far above the limits of human nature and even above ordinary Christian virtue.”

The neocats and feminazis and queers all see dignity as proceeding from within themselves, inherent. No. St. Maria’s dignity, as the pope notes, flowed from her heroic love for Our Lord and Our Lady, Who in turn fortified her with graces for martyrdom. This is real, folks, not some ancient “ideal” or myth from old dusty books. And as real as it is, the neo’s, who live in unreality, despise it with all their might.

I’m raising children, daughters among them. The intercession of Maria Goretti has been invaluable, as they are preserved in purity thus far, even into adulthood.

Parents! Have recourse to this saint, this holy martyr, for your children. As you see, her purity is beyond what the neoCat religion-of-man can impart. Free yourselves from the modern flirtation with “sexuality” and it’s concomitant classroom sex-ed, foisted on children in ALL diocesan schools in the US.

“For just three easy payments of $79.95 and two weekend seminars, you will learn how to avoid overbearing converts from Bob Jones University and morbidly obese modernist neo-Catholic converts who like to scold Catholics endlessly without ever consulting informed or educated Catholics who have spent their entire lives in the Church….These amazing DVD’s will transform your understanding of the anti-rigorist blogosphere and the deeply troubled souls who can’t stop scolding Catholics no matter how many fraternal corrections they have received. Never-before-seen inside tips on the OCD convert to modernism and his habitat. In fact, if you’re not completely satisfied that we have exposed the toxins, pathologies, and routines of the anti-Catholic convert, we will….”

Austin Ruse, the President of C-FAM (Centre for Family & Human Rights) a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focussing on international legal and social policy, has written an important article in Crisis Magazine.

Various writers there have taken an anti-historical and anti-catholic stance on the great and pure, Saint Maria Goretti. You all know the story of this holy virgin, I do not need to repeat it here.

What I do need to say is this.

Simcha Fisher, Mark Shea, Mary Pezzulo, Father Dwight Longenecker (yes, him too), Dave Armstrong, and many others write “click-bait.” They receive their income from their writing and every click at Patheos and Aleteia feed them. Some, such as Mark Shea, goad people into fighting in the combox with him, a direct attempt to get more “clicks.”

Not only that, in the case of Patheos, they also feature pages on Wicca, Paganism, Atheism and more. Why would any faithful Catholic write on religion for any group that just places the One, True, Faith on the panorama of world religions as if all are true and equal?

It is frankly, blasphemous and that is what Longenecker, Shea, Fischer and the others are doing when they write there.

Austin Ruse challenges the writing of these people on the great Saint.

Of course, that some of these bloggers demonstrate an appalling lack of familiarity with Catholic culture would be another reason for not reading them and to stop citing them as if they are informed authorities on Catholic matters.